Not PC

. . . promoting capitalist acts between consenting adults.

Friday, February 08, 2008

Beer O'Clock is back - long live Beer O'Clock.

This week's Beer O'Clock post sees the return of beer writer Stu:

Recently, PC's two favourite politicians, Helen and John, fired their opening shots in what is bound to be another relentless tirade of worthless (and very breakable) election-year promises. I won't promise anything for Election 2008, but I will give you a few of my hopes for the upcoming beer year:

I'd like to see some decent beer in a restaurant or two. Restaurants have been dragging the six-pack for sometime now and I'm demanding a lot more of them. You should too. Frankly, a well-matched beer is at least the equal of any wine when matching with food (especially the buttery and/or spicy dishes that we love to dine out on).

Please, please, please, NZ brewers: It's time we started to see a wider variety of styles being brewed right here at home. Too many New Zealand craft breweries produce beers to compete with the big players, and more still produce lesser imitations of well known craft beer icons. I'd like to see some of our best brewers really get out there and take a risk. There are so many styles that have not yet been explored in the local beer industry (more on this in the coming weeks and months, as I take a trip through the many beer styles of the world and wonder why our brewers aren't brewing more of them).

Is 2008 the year we'll see an expansion of the Epic range? Epic Pale Ale burst onto our shelves a couple of years back with a shed-load of hops. It was a taste awakening for many casual beer drinkers, and continues to be so for those only just finding it. Brewer Luke Nicholas recently left his longtime post as head brewer for the Cock and Bull chain of pubs to take over sole charge of the Epic beers and brand. He's tentatively released a couple of white labels under the Epic brand but we're yet to see the widescale release of beer number two. Rumour has it that a hoppy pale lager is on the way...

A new flag bearer for great tasting craft beer. Richard Emerson (Emerson's) and Luke Nicholas (Epic and until recently, as noted above, Cock and Bull) have been tirelessly waving the flag of great beer for a few years. Others have come and gone, risen and faded, or simmered away promising big things. With success at last year's BrewNZ being split among some of the lesser known microbreweries, there is a possibility that either Three Boys, Renaissance or the huggable Steve Nally of Invercargill Brewery will take up the flag and wave it higher.

DB stepping up and making a decent beer for a change. Beer for beer, Lion trumps DB in every department. The balance and subtlety of Stella Artois has it all over Heineken. Mac's Hop Rocker gives Monteith's Pilsner the hoppy run around. Mac's Sassy Red is in a class that no DB has ever (in my lifetime) been within shouting distance of. DB seem keener on producing over-priced alcopops, like Radler, than in making a beer with any sort of depth of character.

Of course, being election year, I'd like to see a political party campaigning on a decrease in the excise tax on alcohol. That's the tax cut I'd most like to see (and probably the one we are least likely to get). At least I'd like to see them answer why it is that all beers pay a higher-level of excise tax (per litre of alcohol) than the average bottle of wine?

Most of all: I'd like to see all New Zealand brewers sending me [and your editor] beer for evaluation. The best of the best will make it into the limelight of 'Not PC', while the ones that don't make the grade will receive invaluable feedback from one of the country's most dedicated students of beer. Call me on 0274186639 for shipping details - and I'm sure PC, in true Libertarian spirit, will not tax me a single drop.

A tunnel under a safe electorate

Taxpayers have been told that we're going to spend $2.3billion plus costs to put a motorway in a tunnel under Helen Clark's electorate, with the dangled carrot that a "public-private partnership" could take up part of the slack. Whale Oil notes an even more attractive carrot here, but David Farrar spots a contradiction: "Just three months ago Labour was hysterically attacking public-private partnerships as evil (despite passing a special law to allow them), and now they are embracing them again." I think it's called an election, David.

That's not the only contradiction. You'd think a better use of $2.3billion plus costs would be to get going on a second harbour crossing to relieve the most congested drive in New Zealand, and as Graham Reid reminds us, former councillor Richard Simpson and JASMAX have between them already come up with a scheme that's a beauty -- it's not only full of borrowed beauty, it could not only free up St Mary's bay, it could actually pay for itself. (More details in this post.)

The revolution will be Facebooked

A guest post here from Julian, who was at Tuesday's anti-FARC protest in Auckland.The internet is transforming the way people communicate and organise, and now Facebook (and one engineer in a Colombian city) is being credited with creating "the widest international demonstration in history." A Facebook group set up by Oscar Morales less than one month ago culminated in over 4.8 million people in Colombia and thousands more in 140 cities around the world coming together in a rejection of the activities of Colombia's Marxist revolutionary group FARC.
Oscar Morales, an engineer based in Barranquilla, Colombia, reportedly launched the No More FARC movement with five Facebook friends. The group now has some 272,578 members, which networked to produce Wednesday's worldwide groundswell against FARC's programme of murder, mayhem and kidnapping. Those who recall how brigades of text-messaging youngsters helped overthrow corrupt Philippines president Joseph Estrada seven years ago might reflect on how modern communications have changed things for today's protesters (and the failure of a recent Filipino coup has other lessons). This is likely to change the way elections and even revolutions occur in the future.
The photos above show the hundreds of thousands of anti-FARC protestors in Colombia's capital, Bogota, in Cali (below right), and Spain (left). [Pictures from BBC News.]
Colombians living in Auckland along with some New Zealanders joined the global protest in Queen Elizabeth Square at dawn on Tuesday. The National Anthem of Colombia was sung and speeches were made (in English and Spanish) demanding liberty from the activities of the FARC. Photos below…..

Economics made easy -- we hope

Gonzo economist Steven Levitt , 'Stevo' to his friends, has announced he's offering a $10K top prize for the best video presentation of economics concepts. [Hat tip Division of Labor.] Most economics lectures are not pretty, he says, and he wants to help change that.

If there were a prize given for the best economics lecture at the University of Chicago in a year, I know who would have won it last year. I brought in a very high-priced call girl to guest lecture at my undergraduate Economics of Crime class. The next day, I asked my students whether they liked the lecture. More than one-third of them said it was the single best lecture they had attended in their four years of college. I had to agree with them.

Max Borders has already made his entry, which you can see at YouTube. It's better than it sounds -- a less off-putting title might be 'Why Central Planning Doesn't Work':

Sites

After yesterday's 'Doctors for Freedom' post, commenter Mawm reminded me of the British GPs at Dr Rant who are beginning to rebel against the straitjacket of government interference that is the NHS. Worth bookmarking.

And I'm happy to say that my old favourite Save the Humans is back up and running after a lengthy limbo. Go visit, the site's writers are right back in form. The latest post discusses how "with TV terrorism ratings down, Al-Qaeda is turning to the celebrity sex tape business in hope of generating publicity." And 'Save the Humans' principal Jason Roth comments on what journalists have called "the race issue" in the Democratic primaries race -- an "issue" presumably because one of the Democratic candidates has a darker complexion than the other.

However, the issue of race is such a non-issue that journalists rarely find it necessary to say precisely what is “the issue”. And, hence, the issue.

The “issue” of race is that Americans are both afraid to discuss a person’s race and at the same time compelled to discuss it. Somehow, race matters, but it only matters in some vague way that affects other people’s judgment. And everyone seems to know that race is a “sensitive” issue. They prove it through their fear of telling you what’s so sensitive about it.

Feel free to post further recommendations for site visits in the comments. Or not. Up to you. If I'd visit them myself, I'll post them here on the front page.

The worst building in the world

Here's two serious contenders for the title of world's worst building.

On the left (appropriately as you'll see) is the world's twenty-second tallest skyscraper, and Pyongyang's largest hotel -- although since the North Korean capital has few tourists and of those few barely any wish to spend a night in a vertical mausoleum, it remains steadfastly empty.

Just as the North Korean economy if modelled on the economic thinking of Joseph Stalin, so too the un-hotel is designed somewhat in the manner of the Stalinist hotels built around Moscow in the forties and fifties. But the one-hundred and five storey Ryugyong Hotel stands on a vastly different scale even to those brutes and with an aesthetic taste rarely if ever seen before. Fortunately.

Amidst Pyongyang's skyline of uniformly tawdry ugliness, the Ryugyong Hotel's carcass stands tall. "The hotel is such an eyesore," says Esquire magazine, "the Communist regime routinely covers it up, airbrushing it to make it look like it's open -- or Photoshopping or cropping it out of pictures completely." [Hat tip James Heaps-Nelson]

On a different scale, but no less repellent for that, is the new Akron Art Museum by competition winners Coop Himmelb(l)au*, who in their design statement say,

The museum design introduces the firm's unique approach to historic structures, pioneered in Vienna, to the United States.... The museum of the future is a three-dimensional sign in the city, which transports the content of our visual world. There are no longer showrooms, which show digital and analogue visual information in the most diverse forms, but also the spaces which cater to urban experiences... Rather than going to the museum simply to look at art, visitors are welcomed to engage in artistic discourse, attend music and arts festivals, or maybe just hang out on their way elsewhere. Blah, blah, blah.

Another American city bends over to pick up the soap for a gang of Eurotrash art theory hustlers... To me it just looks like a mechanical alligator snarfing down a Beaux Arts post office... The upper jaw thing hanging over the original building is called "the roof cloud." I suppose it will allow visitors to "hang out" on the roof of the old building when it's raining out. Or something like that.

Feel free to click on all three images to feel the full grotesqueness of them all and, if you can handle a video of the un-hotel, click on that Esquire link. * * * * *

* Yes, that is the correct spelling. A commenter at John's blog suggests "the "(l)" is to put emphasis on 'blaah' sound that one makes when they throw up, the same reaction one gets when they see their work."

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Key = Hide

Finally waking up from both his long political slumbers and his taxpaid weight-watcher's programme, in his first speech for the year ahead (which is helpfully titled "The Year Ahead" so it won't be confused with other years about which he might be talking) Rodney Hide appears to have been taking policy lessons from John Key.

In a speech that shows every sign of setting the direction for the ACT party's last year in parliament, Hide claims ACT "has the opportunity to change the country's direction," and the goal "to get into a position where our vote is needed to form a government."

I'll let the voters themselves decide whether the latter is likely, but I was interested to see him declare that "to get [ACT] MPs elected we need to drive decent policy -- and to announce and campaign on policy that will make a difference to how the country is run."

Naturally curious what these policies might be, especially since ACT's website shows precious little sign of either announcing or campaigning on any such things -- and having a fair idea of what such policies might look like -- I scoured the speech like a schoolboy through a box of chocolate assortments to find those tempting policy treats from ACT that, as promised, "will make a difference to how the country is run." I came up short. For a start, this promised box of goodies has only three treats within -- those covering "the key areas we have been working on," says Hide, which are "Health, Education and the Economy" -- and while each one is wrapped in a tasty coating of criticism of the current state of play in each "key" area, there's little of substance to show why Rodney Hide's party is the answer should he ever get into a position where his vote is needed to form a government.

To put it bluntly, despite the narrow focus -- and despite "working on" these keys to "making a difference" for some time -- there's precious few goodies here to show for it. After removing the wrapper on Health, for example, we find just this small soft centre:

What Health desperately needs [says Hide] is greater transparency and accountability. Patients need to know what they're entitled to and what they can expect. Taxpayers need to know what their tax dollars are buying and that they're getting value for money. That alone would be a good first step in a sector where political success is still determined by money spent rather than results achieved.

Sounds like marshmallow to me, I'm afraid, and that's all the policy you're going to hear on one of the three "key" policies on which he's been working. Just those two buzzwords of "transparency" and "accountability." Buzzwords abound too in the second "key" area, Education. On removing the wrapper on this shy treat we find an even softer centre than before:

ACT [says Hide] is working on exciting policy in education that will improve vastly the opportunities for young New Zealanders and their families. We can make a big difference in education. And by making a big difference in Education, we can make a big difference to our country's future success.

This is clearly a policy that's big, exciting and different all at the same time (please pause for a moment to recover your breath from cheering), but one looks in vain to find out how, or why it's any one of these. Once again our hunger is unfulfilled, but in the meantime at least there's there's plenty of cliches in the places where real delights should be.

Maybe all the time spent "working on key areas" has been spent on the chocolate labelled 'Economy'? On that there's much more of a hard centre, and what's said is allright ... as far as it goes ... but as policies these sure do put the "micro" into economics.

Hide talks hopefully about his Regulatory Responsibility Bill putting "a bonfire under mindless red-tape" and about ACT's Taxpayers Rights Bill "capping taxes to what they are now" Fond hopes, I suspect. And he talks fondly, once again, about his strangely obnoxious concept of "High Performance Government" -- an idea both frightening and oxymoronic at the same time.

He talks too, like all opposition politicians do at this time in the election cycle, of the "need to cut red tape" and to "cut taxes to boost the incentive to work and to invest." True enough, but when even Hard Labour are using that line, the reawaked Rodney Hide starts to look somewhat like a time-worn Rip van Winkle who's awoken to find that the world has moved on around him, and he hasn't yet caught up. Time for radicalism, man, not soporific soft-soap and the resounding echo of me-tooisms.

At at a time when there IS no parliamentary opposition, this is a time for real radicalism, not cliches, buzzwords and promises to announce something later that other parties are already promising to promise.

If this speech was a bid to announce Hide's intention to campaign on detailed policies that will make a genuine difference to "how the country is run," then it might have been better in my view to have fronted up with some.

To give the same policy advice I'd give to National's policy directors, if you're truly genuine about policies that change the country's direction then you'd better start campaigning with some policies. And you wouldn't be worrying about those policies being stolen, because if they are and you're genuine about changing the country's direction, then you'd know that you'd just done that. You'd cheer every time they're stolen, and then you'd go even further out on your road to making your final goal nearer.

That's what you'd do if you were really genuine, in this year and in every year.

It's worth repeating this for the record: if National aren't the answer, then on this sort of evidence neither is ACT.

No email

If any readers have sent me an email in the last day or so, allow me to point out that iHug's email is down, and I don't have it. iHug say their engineers "know about this issue and are working to fix it as quickly as possible." So don't hold your breath for a reply if you're waiting for one.

Doctors for Freedom

We've had Doctors Without Borders, Doctors for Global Health and Doctors For Life. Now it's time for something new: Doctors for Freedom, an organisation "dedicated to the single most important component of excellence in medical care: personal autonomy." They're two American doctors who believe in freedom first -- who say, "Letting drunken sanctimonious blowhards control health care is the same as, to steal from P.J. O'Rourke, "giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys..."

Do you believe that we must "keep the promise to our seniors" that became the disastrous glutton called Medicare? Do you believe that people should have a right to purchase cigarettes and stereos and still receive free health care? Do you believe that individual physicians have a duty to society at large? Do you believe in the goodness of big government compassion? Do you believe that doctors have an obligation to to face the daily threat of criminal sanctions including fines and imprisonment, in order to care for certain patients?

"A new concept for John Key. It's called a principle." (Updated)

Liberty Scott has "a new concept for John Key. It's called a principle."

Obviously not something seen a lot around John Boy's office. Rarely to be observed in National's policy manifesto. And Certainly nowhere in evidence in his latest flip flop: National's promise to abolish the Maori seats was one of the few remaining policies on which John Boy still hadn't backed down, so it comes as no surprise to see him finally get on to it. His new policy is to hold off abolishing the race-based seats until all the treaty grievances that can be dreamed up by the grievance warriors -- every single one of them -- has wended its way through all the lawyers' offices of New Zealand.

As Scott says, offering the backdown in this particular form offers a significant incentive to all the gravy train riders to keep the train right on rolling, and is presumably a prelude to making coalition deals with the Maori Party.

If you thought it was absurd yesterday to see Key hongi-ing the leader of an armed group who talked abut assassinating him, just think about him hongi-ing Tariana Turia later in the year as he welcomes the woman who was considered too unstable for a seat at Helen Clark's cabinet table to a seat around his.

Yesterday’s Waitangi Day celebrations, acclaimed by the media as the most peaceful in a long while, were actually the most sickening ever.

They plainly confirmed the voluntary servitude of the media to Mordi separatists and the dearth of decency among mainstream politicians. In fact, the only one who came through with her dignity intact was Helen Clark.

First was the revolting spectacle of John Key, now double-jointed from all his recent flip-flopping, brown-nosing one of the specimens implicated in the proposal to assassinate him. Craven cowardice doesn’t come any more craven and cowardly than this.

Then came the brown-nosing of the same wannabe terrorist and his family and other co-conspirators by TVNZ’s Close Up programme, which had paid some of the expenses of these creatures. Close-Up was simply wall-to-wall Harawira/Iti, including nauseating genuflection by reporter Janes and presenter Sainsbury...

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

One-Law-For-All Day

Expect another day tomorrow of protest, anger and hot air, all now par for the course for the day on which New Zealand was founded. You'd think, in a country with as much to offer and as much to celebrate as New Zealand has that our National Day itself would be something to celebrate. Not likely.

Even without a full moon, Waitangi Day instead regularly produces a ragtag cavalcade of mischief-makers intent on misunderstanding whatever anyone else says -- no matter how simple and however straightforward. Every year there's a whole lot of people doing a whole lot of talking very loudly past each other -- often the same people every year. I expect no less this year. I expect another Waitangi Day with the same protests as last year, the same people loudly proclaiming that the state owes them a living ... and more claims for even more legal privilege based on race.

Another Waitangi Day in which the the usual parade of politicians and protestors confront and avoid each other, in which the professional grievance industry bewail their fate and issue further demands for the taxpayer to give 'til it hurts. Frankly, we don't need another tax-paid gravy train or another grievance industry or yet another charter for separatism or a forum in which to demand it -- and this was never what was promised by the Treaty. We simply need good law -- good colourblind law. That was what the Treaty promised.

We don't need more nationalisation of land, of seabed or of foreshore; we simply need a legal system in which what we own is protected, in which real injustices can be proven swiftly and without great expense, and where justice can be done and be seen to be done. That was what the Treaty made possible.

The disappointment is that the promise has not always been the reality.

Perhaps the greatest disappointment every Waitangi Day is to reflect that for all the time spent on Te Tiriti in New Zealand school rooms, there's so little understanding of what it means, nor of the context in which it was signed. Teaching real history is no longer fashionable. Teaching myths is.

Partnership? The Treaty was not about 'partnership' of the form now espoused -- neither word nor concept appeared in the document. It was not a Treaty offering permanent welfare, nor a tax-paid gravy train into perpetuity. In three short articles it simply offered the introduction of British law, and the rights and protections that were then protected by British law. That was it.

Biculturalism? The Treaty that was agreed talked neither about race nor culture. Like British law itself at the time it was colourblind. What it promised was not the politics of race but the same protection for anyone, regardless of race, creed or skin colour.

Would that today's law was so blind.

At the time it was signed, the context of British law really meant something. By the middle of the nineteenth century, British law -- which included British common law -- was the best the world had yet seen. It was what had made Britain rich, and what still makes the places where British law was introduced some of the most prosperous places in the world in which to live today. From the perspective of one-hundred and sixty-eight years later, when individual rights and property rights are taken for granted even as they're slowly expunged, it's easy to take the framework and protection of British law for granted. Looked at in the context of the history of human affairs however it was a tremendous achievement: the first time in which individual rights and property rights were recognised in law, and protected in a relatively simple and accessible framework. Perhaps history's first truly objective legal system.

The introduction of British law to the residents of these Shaky Isles at the bottom of the South Pacific, which at the the time were riven with inter-tribal warfare, was a boon -- and those who eagerly signed knew that. Their immediate perspective might have been short-term -- to forestall a feared annexation by France; to end inter-tribal violence; to secure territorial gains made in the most recent inter-tribal wars; to gain a foothold for trade -- but there's no doubt they had at least an inkling that life under British law promised greater peace, and the chance at prosperity.

"He iwi tahi tatou"

'He iwi tahi tatou.' We are now one people. So said Governor Hobson to Maori chieftains as they signed the Treaty that is now the source of so much division. But are we really 'one people'? Not really. No more than our ancestors were then. But nor are we two, three or fifty-four peoples -- do you have a people? -- and nor does it matter. What Governor Hobson brought to New Zealand with the Treaty was British law, which then meant something, and Western Culture, which makes it possible to see one another not as 'peoples,' not as part of a tribe or a race, but each of us as sovereign individuals in our own right.

That was a good thing.

But unfortunately, we still don't see each other that way, do we? And the myth-making about 'partnership' and 'biculturalism' is just one way to avoid seeing it.

To be fair, the Treaty itself isn't much to see. What Hobson brought was not the founding document for a country, but a hastily written document intended to forestall French attempts at dominion (and the Frank imposition of croissants and string bikinis), and which brought to New Zealand for the first time the concept of individualism, and the protection of property rights and of an objective rule of law. But the Treaty itself was short, spare and to the point. What it relied upon was the context of British law as it then existed. The Treaty's three short clauses promised little -- as everyone understood, the intent was to point to the wider context and say 'We're having that here.' But that understanding is now clouded with invective, and the context that is no longer with us.

British law is not what it was, and there's a meal ticket now in fomenting misunderstanding of what it once promised.

The Treaty signed one-hundred sixty-seven years ago today was not intended as the charter for separatism and grievance and the welfare gravy train that it has become - to repeat, it was intended no more and no less than to bring the protection of British law and the rights and privileges of British citizens to the residents of these islands -- residents of all colours. That was the context that three simple clauses were intended to enunciate. And one-hundred and sixty-seven years ago, the rights and privileges of British citizens actually meant something -- this was not a promise to protect the prevailing culture of tribalism (which had dominated pre-European New Zealand history and underpinned generations of inter-tribal conflict, and which the modern myth of 'partnership' still underpins), but a promise to protect individuals from each other; a promise to see Maoris not as part of a tribe, but as individuals in their own right; a promise to protect what individuals own and what they produce by their own efforts. That the promise is sometimes seen in the breach than in practice is no reason to spurn the attempt.

The Treaty helped to make New Zealand a better place for everyone.

Protection

Life in New Zealand before the advent of the rule of law recognised neither right, nor privilege, nor even the concept of ownership. It was not the paradise of Rousseau's noble savage; force was the recognised rule du jour and the source of much barbarity (see for example 'Property Rights: A Blessing for Maori New Zealand'). Indeed just a few short years before the Treaty was signed, savage inter-tribal warfare reigned, and much of New Zealand was found to be unpopulated following the fleeing of tribes before the muskets and savagery and cannibalism of other tribes.

Property in this war of all against all was not truly owned; instead, it was just something that was grabbed and held by one tribe, until it was later grabbed and held by another. To be blunt, life was brutish and it was short, just as it was in pre-Industrial Revolution Europe, and - let's face it -- it was largely due to the local culture that favoured conquest over peace and prosperity. As Thomas Sowell reminds us: "Cultures are not museum pieces. They are the working machinery of everyday life. Unlike objects of aesthetic contemplation, working machinery is judged by how well it works, compared to the alternatives." Pre-European local culture was not working well for those within that culture. Let's be really blunt (and here I paraphrase from this article):

In the many years before the Treaty was signed, the scattered tribes occupying New Zealand lived in abject poverty, ignorance, and superstition -- not due to any racial inferiority, but because that is how all mankind starts out (Europeans included). The transfer of Western civilisation to these islands was one of the great cultural gifts in recorded history, affording Maori almost effortless access to centuries of European accomplishments in philosophy, science, technology, and government. As a result, today's Maori enjoy a capacity for generating health, wealth, and happiness that their Stone Age ancestors could never have conceived.

Harsh, but true. And note those words before you hyperventilate: "not due to any racial inferiority, but because that is how all mankind starts out (Europeans included)." Some one-hundred and fifty years before, the same boon was offered to the savage, dirt-poor Scottish tribesmen who were living then much as pre-Waitangi Maori were. Within one-hundred years following the embrace of Western civilisation, Scotland was transformed and had became one of the centres of the Enlightenment. Such was the cultural gift being offered.

The boon of Western Civilisation was being offered here in New Zealand not after conquest but for just a mess of pottage, and in return for the right of Westerners to settle here too. As Sir Apirana Ngata stated, "if you think these things are wrong, then blame your ancestors when they gave away their rights when they were strong" - giving the clue that 'right' to Ngata's ancestors, equated to 'strong' more than it did to 'right.'

Who 'owned' New Zealand?

It's said that Maori owned New Zealand before the Treaty was signed, and that while the 'shadow' of sovereignty was passed on, the substance remained. This is nonsense. Pre-European Maori never "owned" New Zealand in any sense, let alone in any meaningful sense of exercising either ownership or sovereignty over all of it.

First of all, they had no concept at all of ownership by right; 'ownership' was not by right but by force; it represented taonga that was taken by force and held by force -- just as long as they were able to be held (see again, for example 'Property Rights: A Blessing for Maori New Zealand'). Witness for example the savage conflict over the prosperous lands of Tamaki Makaurau, over which generations of Kawerau, Nga Puhi, Ngati Whatua and others fought. There was no recognition at any time that these lands were owned by a tribe by right -- they were only held as long as a tribe's might made holding them possible, and as long as the fighting necessary to retain them brought a greater benefit than it did to relinquish them (and by the early 1800s, with so much fighting to be done to hold them, all tribes gave up and left the land to bracken instead).

Second, even if the tribesmen and women had begun to develop the rudiments of the concept of ownership by right (the concept of ownership by right being relatively new even to 1840 Europeans) they didn't own all of the country -- they only 'owned' what they owned. That is, what Maori possessed were the lands and fisheries they occupied and farmed and fished and used. This was never all of New Zealand, nor even most of New Zealand. The rest of it lay unowned, and unclaimed.

Third, prior to the arrival of Europeans Maori did not even see themselves as 'one people'; the word 'Maori' simply meant 'normal,' as opposed to the somewhat abnormal outsiders who had now appeared with their crosses and muskets and strange written incantations. The tangata whenua saw themselves not as a homogeneous whole, but as members of various tribes. This was not a nation, nor even a collection of warring tribes. Apart from the Confederacy of United Tribes -- an ad hoc group who clubbed together in 1835 in a bid to reject expected overtures from the French -- there was no single sovereignty over pre-European New Zealand, no sovereign entity to cede sovereignty, and no way a whole country could be ceded by those who had never yet even laid claim to it in its entirety.

Our 'Founding Document'?

So the British came, and saw, and hung about a bit. The truth is that some of the best places in the world in which to live are those where the British once came, and saw and then buggered off -- leaving behind them their (once) magnificent legal system, and the rudiments of Western Culture. See for example, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and of course (as noted in obituaries of former governor John Cowperthwaite) Hong Kong. We lucked out.

What the Treaty did do, for which we can all be thankful, was to bring British law to NZ at a time when British law was actually intended to protect the rights of British citizens, and it promised to extend that protection to all who lived here. For many and often differing reasons, that was what the chieftains signed up to. To become British citizens, with all the rights and privileges thereof.

But the Treaty itself was not a founding document. No, it wasn't. On its own, with just three simple articles and a brief introduction, there was just not enough there to make it a document that founds a nation. As a document it simply pointed to the superstructure of British law as it then was and said, 'let's have that down here on these islands in the South Pacific.'

The treaty's greatest promise was really in its bringing to these islands those rights and privileges that British citizens enjoyed by virtue of their then superb legal system; the protection of Pax Britannia when those rights and that protection meant something, and when British power saw protection of British rights as its sworn duty. The result of this blessing of relatively secure individual rights was the palpable blessings of relative peace, of increasing security, and of expanding prosperity.

Sadly, British jurisprudence no longer does see its duty that way, which means the legal context in which the Treaty was signed has changed enormously, and the blessings themselves are sometimes difficult to see. Law, both in Britain and here in NZ, now places welfarism and need above individualism and rights. That's the changing context that has given steam and power to the treaty-based gravy train, and allowed the Treaty and those who consume the Treaty's gravy to say it says something other than what is written in it.

The truly sad thing is that the Treaty relied on a context that no longer exists -- and the only way to restore that context, in my view, is with a new constitution that makes the original context explicit. To restore the original legal context, and to improve upon it with a legal context that protects and reinforces an Objective rule of law -- as British law itself once did -- one that clarifies what in the Treaty was only vague or was barely put. And in doing so, of course, such a constitution would make the Treaty obsolete.

Thank goodness.

The Dream

Waitangi Day comes just two weeks after Martin Luther King Day. It might be worthwhile to remind ourselves of King's dream for the future of his own children:

"I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character..."

Perhaps we will one day celebrate that dream down here -- not as a dream, but as reality. Celebrating our national day not as a charter for grievance that continues to poison discussion, but instead with real joy. Celebrating that the colour of a man's skin is of no importance compared to the content of his character. Shaking off the gravy train of grievance.

Perhaps one day we will actually celebrate the birth of this great little country, instead of seeing its birthday as an annual source of conflict. Wouldn't that be something to celebrate?

Don't Vote Labour

Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio (1889), Oak Park, Illinois

Frank Lloyd Wright's home and draughting office.

The Shingle Style home he designed and had built in his late teenage years when he first began work with Louis Sullivan (Wright's first employer Lyman Silsbee was a Shingle Style designer); the attached draughting office built nine years later was where Wright set up office with Marion Mahoney and Walter Burley Griffin once he left Sullivan -- and where they invented the Prairie Style.

Monday, February 04, 2008

$150,000 per car!

After four years of delaying traffic the North Shore busway gets its first proper use today. With its opening the government has spent nearly $300 million of your money in order to get 2000 cars off the Northern motorway every day. That's $210 million, plus the cost of bus stations and buses. That's $150,000 per car!

Couldn't they have invested our money in a few private taxis instead? Or a viable second crossing?

That's $300 million to keep an empty lane open next to the Northern motorway's clogged lanes just so that (as Liberty Scott says) a near-empty bus can whiz by every three minutes. At that price, the bloody thing deserves to be better used. It won't be -- not unless, as Scott suggests, it becomes a tollway.

As a tollway, it could charge vehicles a premium to bypass congestion, like the 91 express lanes in California. The tolls would be high, and vary according to demand, and would ensure free flow conditions remain. However, the tolls could ultimately pay for the road (except that past road users have already paid for it). An even better option would be to sell it, let bus companies pay for the right to use it, along with other road users. People could hardly moan about there not being an alternative, the government owned "free" motorway beside it would remain available.

They died of it

Three Hawkes Bay people have died waiting for coronary bypass surgery, and Health Minister David Cunliffe is calling for an "independent inquiry." It doesn't require another viewing of 'Yes Minister' to realise that the chief reason for such an inquiry is not to uncover anything, but to divert attention from those truly culpable.

Mr Cunliffe already knows the root cause of long surgical waiting lists. It is the Sovietization of health care [in New Zealand] and the failure of subsequent governments to allow New Zealanders to fully fund and manage their health requirements...

Unless he publicly renounces socialism and moves to urgently deregulate and privatise the health industry, says McGrath, the incumbent minister of health must be held accountable for the die-while-you-wait health 'care,' and resign immediately. It's not like it hasn't been obvious for some time. Politicians take billions from NZers every year, and deliver in return a socialised system in which health care is rationed.

These three people just died of it.

Twelve years ago, former Libertarianz Party leader Lindsay Perigo spoke of the die-while-you-wait health system. Since then, nothing has changed. There is still a shortage of qualified specialist staff in cardiac surgery and other services.

Under a private system, market forces mean hospitals would have to offer higher rates of pay and better conditions in order to attract staff - and rapidly - or risk financial ruin. Under a socialized system, hospitals respond to the demands of their customers with the trademark bureaucratic inertia we have come to expect in our public hospitals and health ministry.

As three Hawkes Bay families have now been made aware, this bureaucratic inertia is fatal. Or as Don Watkins says: "socialized medicine kills."

'FARC off' says worldwide protest (updated)

Tomorrow morning offers Aucklanders and Wellingtonians the opportunity to stand up against tyranny. First, some background.

Hugo Chavez's South American socialism is pulling the switch on Venezuela, and is making moves to turn out the lights all across South America. For forty years Venezuela's neighbour Colombia has been wracked with kidnapping, killing and would-be insurrection from an organisation called the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) whose stated goal is to create a communist state, and for whom Chavez is now their mouthpiece.

FARC's insurgency has already resulted in the displacement of 2 million people, thousands of deaths, and the labelling of Colombia as the "kidnapping capital of the world." These people are scum.

Colombians are heartily sick of the violence of these 'narco-guerillas,' and they sure don't want either Chavez-style communism or his interference. What they want is peace and the chance at prosperity they have without FARC's terrorism.

Around the world tomorrow one million voices will be raised in protest against FARC and its terrorism. The Auckland and Wellington rallies are timed to coincide with protests throughout Colombia and in 131 other cities throughout the world. Demonstrators will be demanding an end to FARC's campaign of terror against the the population of Colombia and to its kidnappings, massacres and murders.

"We hope the whole country will come out to join us," said Cristina Lucena, a 24-year-old political science student from Bogota and one of the protest's six main organizers. Join several hundred Colombian nationals in NZ tomorrow to help make their voice heard from here.

Join the international protest against the terrorist activities of the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Queen Elizabeth Square in Auckland on Tuesday, February 5 from 6am-9am, and in Wellington at the end of Lambton Quay and beside the Parlament building from 7.30am to 8.30 am. WEAR WHITE FOR PEACE.

A swift boat for McCain (updated)

Arch-Republicans Ann Coulter and Jack Wheeler agree: Don't back McCain. Says Coulter, "I'd rather deal with President Hillary than with President McCain. With Hillary, we'll get the same ruinous liberal policies with none of the responsibility." You can see video of Coulter's admission here. For Wheeler's part, he explains:

I would not in any circumstances vote for John McCain, not if either Hillary or Obama were the alternative. Evil is safer than crazy. Leftie amateur inexperience is safer than crazy...

A McCain presidency will be the destruction of the Republican Party. It needs to be rebuilt, not wiped out with the field clear for the fascists of the left to consolidate power and eliminate freedom. And maybe the only way to rebuild it is in dedicated impassioned opposition to a Clinton White House. That should be the subject of Ann Coulter's next book. I've already got the title for her. Her last book was If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans. Ann needs to now write this book: If Republicans Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans.

That John McCain is clinically nuts is scary enough. What worries a small group of GOP Senators and Congressmen even more is a deep and dark skeletal secret in McCain's glorified past to which they are privy, and which [they believe] the Clintons will use to blackmail him.

"A pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be Prime Minister."

David Farrar has drawn great comfort from a review of John Key’s background appearing in NZ's Sunday Star-Times -- which is now, let's face it, an unreliable rag. (The article suggests the report has some association with London's esteemed Financial Times (FT), but the exact connection is unclear, and a search at FT's site reveals no recent news on John Boy.) The Sunday Star-Times praises his managerial skills:

What made Key an outstanding success in the brutally Darwinian business of banking was not his foreign exchange skills although they were more than acceptable. Instead what set him apart were essentially political and managerial skills. He was unusually good at charming colleagues and clients, and rallying staff around him...

While most successful traders in the financial world tend to be introverted, extremely brainy or thrive on taking crazily big bets, Key had never been a “typical” trader...

“I suppose a lot of FX [foreign exchange] guys do tend to be inward looking [says Steve Bellotti, Key’s immediate boss at Merrill Lynch] but John is a lot broader than that. He has real leadership skills. That was what made him really stand out.”

I have no doubt that John Key's management skills are exemplary. I've never challenged that. I'm sure his ability to lead a team in business is second to none. I've never questioned that. What I do note, however, is the skills cited are not the qualities that are needed in politics.

In business one's goals are generally focused and clear -- the job is to manage your team towards those goals. Politics is not like that. What's more important in politics is not so much what you can do (thought let's not discount that) but as what you stand for: the ability to charm colleagues and clients is all very well, but what's more important is what you're charming them for; leadership skills are all very well, but in a chap seeking the job of Prime Minister what's more important is where exactly we might be led. In this respect, John Key stands for nothing, and the Star-Times article gives no indication he ever has. The worry is that we'll all be led up the garden path.

John Key has articulated no clear direction. None at all. He's given no clear idea of which direction he intends to take New Zealand if he gets the chance, and given his proven ability to make one-hundred and eighty degree changes in direction, no sign that he even has one. In which direction does he intend to manage us? Anyone know? Does he?

Last week's spectacular U-turn on interest-free student loans -- a Labour policy it once promised to oppose with "every bone in our bodies" -- tends to indicate that there is no bone in the National Party body, and no direction in view beyond getting elected. No bone, no spine, no heart, no guts and no vision -- just charm, smarm and the empty vessel of managerialism.

Key's own direction is certainly not set by any inner political conviction -- the existence of which he has never given any sign -- but by the simple expedient of a wetting a finger to find the prevailing wind. A man with no direction is an empty vessel waiting for someone else to fill him up. For all John Key's admirable managerial skills, one is unable to shake the firm conviction that John Key's next direction is all-too frequently determined by the last person he talks to.

In this respect he is the hollow man he's frequently been described as. To paraphrase Walter Lippman's famous remark of Franklin Roosevelt, he is a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be Prime Minister.

That's not enough. As Leighton Smith has been heard to say, "John Key's National is not necessarily the answer."

UPDATE 1: Added for clarification: The co-author of the 'Star-Times' article is Gillian Tett, "an assistant editor of the Financial Times [who] oversees the global coverage of the financial markets."

UPDATE 2: Dave Mann puts it bluntly in the comments: "The choice between an ugly domineering asshole and a grinning smarmy conman is not an enviable one and the country really should have a real alternative to chose from. Where is our alternative?" Might I suggest that the only fundamental alternative to all the various brands of Nanny State is Libertarianz -- and to those who suggest Libertarianz need to get serious to be taken seriously I say, "Watch this space."

UPDATE 3: An article that could have been written especially for John Key's list of essential reading appeared as The Weekend Read of the Mises Daily: 'The Role of Ideas' by Ludwig von Mises. Mises points out that "action is necessarily preceded by thinking" -- in the realm of public affairs, acting without thought generally means actions based on the thoughts and ideas of others. Me-tooing. Real thinking on which genuine human action is based means "to deliberate beforehand over future action and to reflect afterward upon past action. Thinking and acting are inseparable..."

It is always the individual who thinks. Society does not think any more than it eats or drinks... The theories directing action are often imperfect and unsatisfactory. They may be contradictory and unfit to be arranged into a comprehensive and coherent system.

If we look at all the theorems and theories guiding the conduct of certain individuals and groups as a coherent complex and try to arrange them as far as is feasible into a system, i.e., a comprehensive body of knowledge, we may speak of it as a worldview... The concept of an ideology is narrower than that of a worldview. In speaking of ideology we have in view only human action and social cooperation and disregard the problems of metaphysics, religious dogma, the natural sciences, and the technologies derived from them. Ideology is the totality of our doctrines concerning individual conduct and social relations. Both, worldview and ideology, go beyond the limits imposed upon a purely neutral and academic study of things as they are. They are not only scientific theories, but also doctrines about the ought, i.e., about the ultimate ends which man should aim at in his earthly concerns...

Some authors try to justify the contradictions of generally accepted ideologies by pointing out the alleged advantages of a compromise, however unsatisfactory from the logical point of view, for the smooth functioning of interhuman relations. They refer to the popular fallacy that life and reality are "not logical"; they contend that a contradictory system may prove its expediency or even its truth by working satisfactorily while a logically consistent system would result in disaster. There is no need to refute anew such popular errors. Logical thinking and real life are not two separate orbits. Logic is for man the only means to master the problems of reality. What is contradictory in theory, is no less contradictory in reality. No ideological inconsistency can provide a satisfactory, i.e., working, solution for the problems offered by the facts of the world. The only effect of contradictory ideologies is to conceal the real problems and thus to prevent people from finding in time an appropriate policy for solving them. Inconsistent ideologies may sometimes postpone the emergence of a manifest conflict. But they certainly aggravate the evils which they mask and render a final solution more difficult. They multiply the agonies, they intensify the hatreds, and make peaceful settlement impossible. It is a serious blunder to consider ideological contradictions harmless or even beneficial...

There is no other means of preventing social disintegration and of safeguarding the steady improvement of human conditions than those provided by reason. Men must try to think through all the problems involved up to the point beyond which a human mind cannot proceed farther. They must never acquiesce in any solutions conveyed by older generations, they must always question anew every theory and every theorem, they must never relax in their endeavors to brush away fallacies and to find the best possible cognition. They must fight error by unmasking spurious doctrines and by expounding truth...

Society is a product of human action. Human action is directed by ideologies. Thus society and any concrete order of social affairs are an outcome of ideologies... Any existing state of social affairs is the product of ideologies previously thought out. Within society new ideologies may emerge and may supersede older ideologies and thus transform the social system. However, society is always the creation of ideologies temporally and logically anterior. Action is always directed by ideas; it realizes what previous thinking has designed.

If we hypostatize or anthropomorphize the notion of ideology, we may say that ideologies have might over men. Might is the faculty or power of directing actions. As a rule one says only of a man or of groups of men that they are mighty. Then the definition of might is: might is the power to direct other people's actions. He who is mighty owes his might to an ideology. Only ideologies can convey to a man the power to influence other people's choices and conduct. One can become a leader only if one is supported by an ideology which makes other people tractable and accommodating. Might is thus not a physical and tangible thing, but a moral and spiritual phenomenon...

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Recent
Comments

Beer O'Clock is back - long live Beer O'Clock.
Fantastic column Stu. Hear hear! When are you forming the NZ SOBA Party and running for parliament? ;)

Failing that, I suspect a vote for LibertariaNZ would get that excise tax issue sorted...
You've probably reviewed it Peter, but I had a couple or four Harringtons (Christchurch) Pilsners last night.

They were lovely: hoppy and just the right combination of bitter/sweet for me - that is, a tad toward sweet.

Recommended, and the best of their range I think.

Mark Hubbard
All this is good news - but where in Auckland can one buy any beer other than the Big Breweries products?I'm stuck with what I can find locally and agree with Stu about my current favourites - Stella and Sassy Red. The Big Brands generally leave me cold and I often choose not to drink rather than swill their insipid products.
Mawm there's a host, now, of boutique brewers around Christchurch, and again up in Marlborough (Moa - great beer, Pink Elephant).

You must have same in Auckland surely?

If not, leave the dump, why would you want to be living there?

Mark Hubbard
Oh, and by the way, Christchurch also has the best dedicated whiskey shop I know of in NZ.

Mark Hubbard
Great beer in Auckland at Galbraith's, Hallertau and Cock and Bull. Shakespeare's can be very good too, for that rare Aucklander who actually hangs out in the city!

Hallertau do takeaway too. and may have the largest range of NZ bottled beer in the country.

Other than that, there is a wine store in Ponsonby that stocks Emerson's and I believe a New World or two are starting to stock some more interesting beers.
Record high spin
Has anyone done a study about working people receiving working for families such that the amount they pay in tax is lower than what they receive under WFF plus other benefits?

These people are by definition beneficiaries as well.
In a sense, nobody (with the exception of the prime minister, and a few others) recieves more frrom the government than they pay in tax.

My reason for this statement is that the capital that is created by New-Zealanders and stolen and misused by the government, could, if used wisely, be formed into wealth far greater than that which it is now.So when one-in-ten working age New Zealanders isn't working, how can you can call that "record low unemployment."Easy. Just confate "record low unemployment" with record low unemploymenht rate" after pushing more women into work to support their partners in our low wage high cost economyNobody (with the exception of the prime minister, and a few others) recieves more from the government than they pay in tax.

Those with three kids on 45k get more from Working for Families than they pay in tax.
Dave, I'm sure you didn't read Hanso's reason for his statement. I read it to mean if all the tax was invested wisely instead of wasted on the DPB, sickness benefits etc then we could, in theory, get back more than what we put in.
You read correcetly angloamerican. As has been pointed out by PC in the past, money does not equal wealth.
A tunnel under a safe electorate
The revolution will be Facebooked
Economics made easy -- we hope
Sites
The worst building in the world
The Ryugyong is even more hideous close up, it is a concrete shell. Apparently the lift shafts are not plumb, the crane at the top is rusted and been there a good 15 years, although I havent seen it airbrushed out (yes i know) as I see pictures of it in comparatively recent North Korean literature.
On the other hand, it would make a great evil lair... [raises pinkie finger to lips]
A mate told me about his trip last june to North Korea to establish the western dining at a reunification hotel being built on the NK side of the DMZ. In short, the place is a hell hole with the usual winter famine expected to kill thousands if not tens of thousands, NK totally reliant on SK for fuel and much of their food, the only machinery running in his two weeks in the country was the local power plant for a couple of hours a day, a few stationary engines,irrigation pumps?, putt putting in the distance, ex soviet army transports and not an agricultural vehicle to be seen. As an ex soldier my mate tells me that the NK military were certainly not a professional army and more a collection of scared farm boys overseen by a political 'commissar' dressed in 1950s soviet surplus uniforms with ancient soviet weapons and no munitions . The new hotel is set on the coast with an amazing mountain backdrop, sent me photos, a golf course straight out of northern California and an armed escort for the players. The only locals he saw were farm workers kilometres away on the other side of enormous security fences. My mate Richards verdict, leave them to it and the regime will fall all on its own.
Key = Hide
Yes, PC. I can only reiterate what I wrote on a previous thread with regard to ACT

"As ACT won't act (so to speak), do the acting for them. Offer them the opportunity to be with you or against you and if they don't chose the former, attack them as hard as you can go by putting a good candidate against Rodney in Epsom and throwing all your resources into him (or her if you insist on PC language). ACT is finished at the next election anyway unless they revitalise and you people can be the instrument of their revitalisation if you play it properly. Either way you lose nothing and you stand to gain from the publicity alone in such a high profile seat."

So anyway.... I hope you guys are sorting out a top quality candidate to take on Rodney? How's the Architecture business going PC? Are you bored with it and looking for a stimulating change?
Dave, its very disingenious for those who are libertarian minded to wish to "take on" Rodney.

Surely you'd want to unseat a labour or national candidate over the closest thing NZ has to a libertarian in parliament.

Libz in NZ seem to be more interested in staying ideologically pure than actually making a difference. Those of us who are small government minded should be looking at who the real enemy is, rather than petty sqabbling among fellow travellers.
My point, mikee, is that alone the Libertarians are most unlikely to break through the 5% threshold and equally unlikely to get a candidate elected to an electorate seat. So that makes them stuffed for parliamentary representation. In fact, at the moment, I would guess only around 10% of voters actually know that the Libertarian party exists at all. Sad, but true.

ACT is (almost) equally unlikely to achieve either electorate or list representation, judging by their present and recent performance. Rodney seems to have completely lost interest and last time he only just squeaked in, and so that makes them also stuffed as a political force.

I would suggest that if the Libz take on a fight for a socialist-held seat (by socialist I mean either of the two socialist parties, Labour or National, which between them command oh, I don't know... um... 85% of the public vote) then they are doomed to failure because the electorate regards them (rightly or wrongly - thats not the point) as mad fringe dwellers on the edge of sanity without even the benefit of a colourful leader with a nice head of curly hair).

So, what's the only alternative? To try to make an alliance (if you'll forgive the use of such a word on a civilised blog) with ACT and pool resources and fight together as the only representatives of the 'right'. That makes sense, doesn't it?

HOWEVER, if ACT should spurn the Libz, then the Libz should take on Rodney on his own turf. Rodney is finished anyway and ACT will be on the scrapheap after November without an injection of new blood, ideas and personnel.

If the worst were to happen and the Libz had to take on Rodney, then the resulting publicity (with all those wanky 'commentators' onanising over themselves in an effort to 'read' the result in advance) would be well woth the effort.

The Libz wouldn't win, of course. National would win - which given the mood of the electorate as a whole isn't surprising - but the excercise would set the Libz up big time for the next one and establish them in the eyes of the electorate as a viable force for next time. At least people would get a chance to hear the message, which is more than is happening now.
I thought it was interesting that ACT took out adverts encouraging people to sign one of the anti-anti-smacking petitions.

Seeking a protest vote seems far removed from the 'principles not politics' days.
ACT out of parliment equals Libz in how exactly...? The fact is ACT alive and kicking is better than ACT (and Libz) out of parliment anyday.

Its MMP people....it sucks balls but having a far more Libertarian minded ACT party IN the house is a hell of a lot better than no Libs in at all.

Until libertarianz even look like getting elected then they have no leg to stand on...much less bleat and whine about those who ARE there and can make a small difference...as Rodney can.

Put up or shut up.
James

...and Whetu Kara can make a small difference to the running of the local street kid gang; so by your reasoning he should be supported. Of course, Whetu won't stop the gang members from stealing, fighting, vandalising and raping. But he's such a good boy and he might make a small change (perhaps a little less fighting). Until the local property owners join the gang they should put up or shut up .... according to you.

LGM
Get bin the real world Igm....Utopian fantasies are just taht.We need to make the best of what we have....ACT out of Parliment is a step back for liberty in NZ.
James said...ACT out of Parliment is a step back for liberty in NZ.

Agree 100%. The Libz should spend their time hitting the Greens, Labour, NZ First who have done great damage to this country rather than spending their time firing at ACT (& Rodney) which they are like-minded to the Libz (similar policies).
James, it would be a step back for liberty if Act were out, but only when they actually step up and start defending it in an appropriately muscular way.

Falafulu says the Libz should spend more time attacking the Greens, Labour and NZ First. Of course. So should Act! And yet Hide won't campaign on tax cuts, won't campaign on crime, won't campaign on Section 59 or the Electoral Finance Act, because he doesn't want to seem "negative". He won't attack any Labour minister because he thinks it would be unfair. He won't mention specific tax cuts, or even consider mentioning spending cuts or drug law reform, because he thinks it will scare off the Epsom voters. What will he campaign on? The RRB which he's already put through, school vouchers and outsourcing some medical services. Hardly big steps towards freedom especially as they will be watered down in any coalition agreement.

New Zealand needs a party to advocate libertarian principles and policies. Act is not that party.
James

ACT has achieved nothing for freedom. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

It makes no difference whether ACT is in the trough or out of it. They have had years of excellent opportunity to do something and in all that time they achieved... nil.

Now just because you have feelings for the party, that does not mean your worshipping is directed in a worthwhile direction. The object of your affections just does not deserve the support and supplication you are offerring. If it is the cause of freedom you seek to promote, look again at what your heros have said and what they have achieved in that direction. You will be most disappointed.

LGM
Hear hear, lgm
Hide is useless. He's had countless opportunities to attack this government, and what do we get?A delicate whimpering from the margins and tales of his missing kilos.A bloke could get that from his wife any time.
Looks like a good bloke to me
You've got it backwards on the nationalisation of children. Surely treating children like property and allowing them no individual rights over themselves is more akin to nationalisation than giving them ownership over their own bodies?

Freedom for some but not for those you have the power to oppress is it?
I wonder what fines Norm Kirk would have racked up for building his own house?

How dare anybody be self reliant in providing shelter for themselves without feeding an army of bureaucrats first!

'Let this be a lesson to you' says the judge.
anonymous, what the hell are you going on about?
Yea anon, that was a crazy post. You've got that exactly backwards.
No email
Doctors for Freedom
The British GP's are beginning to rebel aginst Govt interference. Read http://www.drrant.net/ for some excellent commentary.
New UK libertarian party
It is a surprise they do not list their Leader or any of their key people on the website.

But yes, rather a surprise they have no actual policies...I mean, if they are so annoyed with the status quo, presumably their policies would be to change that? ..cannot be too difficult to think of something! lol
No, I wouldn't have thought so either.

Still, the English generally do things backwards. ;^)
This has never been done in the UK before, and so a certain degree of toe dipping is involved.The soft launch in January was designed to see how quickly the take up was with no press coverage, just using alternatives such as blogs, personal recommendation, chatter in the pubs, word of mouth etc.

The take-up has been surprisingly good so now they have opened their doors to new members, and the manifesto will be published within the next 2 weeks.

At that time will they launch into the press, and become a large voice in UK politics very quickly, having not had to rely on the main stream media to get them there.
An outline of the manifesto is now up (at that same link), you will hoepfully be glad to know...

DK
There has been some time passed since you posted this item.

Perhaps you would like to see where we have managed to get with regards our manifesto, although broadly similar in nature, it does lack the more colourful language that you chaps like.http://lpuk.org/pages/manifesto.php

You may also be interested to note that we have been active on the campaign front, our latest being the sending of all 646 MP's a copy of George Orwell's 1984, with the message that the book was written as a warning, not a blueprint.http://lpuk.blogspot.com/2008/10/they-are-not-listening-time-for-action.html

We would like to thank you for your initial curiosity and this post, and would appreciate any further postings you may consider.

regardsIan Parker-JosephLeader - Libertarian Party UKhttp://lpuk.org/pages/libertarian-party/leadership.php
"A new concept for John Key. It's called a principle." (Updated)
Goddamn, John Key is an inspiring mutha. The way he appeals to youth, the way he is a uniter not a divider...it's all just so...prime ministerial.

Imagine that against crazy, angry, old Helen Clark.

It's fun to see the desperate upper-lip sweat starting to bead on the nutzoid Key Haters though. Let's see how effective it is.
Funny how the nutzoid Key Lovers are anonymous, eh!

Come later this year if all you folks are on suicide watch after a John Key white out don't come cryin' to me.

If in doubt just ask yourself "What would John Key do?"
What would John Key do?

Another U-turn I suspect.
What would John Key do?

What WOULD John Key do?

WHAT would John Key do?

Don't know. Reckon he doesn't know either.

And therein lies a problem.

LGM
LGM - just HOW is that a problem from a libertarian perspective?

As a result of a constant barrage of propaganda we have been led to believe politicians have some kind of divine right to impose their will on us, or that they must 'fix' things.

The idea that politicians have to 'do something' is incompatible with libertarianism IMO. People should look elsewhere than govt for their freedom.

The less JK does the better.

PS I address the post to you cuz I don't think anyone else gets it - trhey just seek power for themselves, which is a further extension of the disease.
John Key will implement new policies once the National gets into government after the election.
At last, an intelligent comment from an anonononyonymouse. Hooofuccinraaay!

It would be good if politicians did nothing. Oh yea! But the trouble with that is that they have already done a great amount of harm. For instance, they have enabled a massive bureaucracy of crazy evil muthas to control every aspect of Kiwi life. What that means is that some politician has to actually do something; he/she/it has to undo the enablement.

jon kei minor of the state house, or whatever he calls himself these days, actually needs to DO SOMETHING if he really wants to solve the vexations wrecking civil life in NZ. That is, assuming he actually gives a damn. Trouble be, that on previous performance, he has not a care about that at all. Also he does not know WHAT to do, let alone what HE will do (given a particular set of circumstance and context). Still, he is in with the correct party; the one without principle or consistent morality.

In the final analysis, NZers (Kiwis or whatever they call themselves lately) are going to be well fooled into voting for this funny but pleasant little critter. Then they are going to keep on the path of pay and pay- just as they are now. Foolishness. Myth believers. Man oh dear, have I got a bridge for you dummies to buy. Then again, Kiwis are not known for being smart.

LGM
Thanks for your reply LGM.

Here's MY final analysis: If you are waiting for the government to change, or society to change, or for some programme to be successful to find freedom, you will never be free.

Which is why I find the hysterical teeth-gnashing, hair-pulling and garment-rending over the thought of a National govt more than a little amusing.
One-Law-For-All Day
A wonderful post. I wish to hell I could afford to have thousands of copies printed and distributed to every household in the country.It's sorely needed.
A brilliant post!
brilliant Peter.....I couldn't have said it better myself. Wouldn't it be great if John Keys had the intelligence strength and vision to say something like this?
That might just be the best thing you have ever written.
Print a million copies of this post and box drop the country next year.
Cannot add much to the fulsome praise already heaped upon you for this outstanding post.But I will try, it was simple enough for a dunce like me to follow but with a depth of detail to add weight to its authority. Well done.I have put a post up on my feeble by comparison blog and have INSTRUCTED my readership (mum and a couple of mates)to immediately click through and read it here.
Thanks to Barnsley Bill for directing me here and indeed a great post Not PC.

The problem is that you can argue until you're blue in the face about the rights and wrongs of Political Correctness but they will NEVER listen.

Don't even try to convert the PC brigade. Watch them at every turn and defeat them. Don't give them an inch as their methods are insidious and unrelenting. They have destroyed the UK and there is no way back for us now.

It starts in the colleges (most notably teaching colleges) where young and easily influenced minds can be intercepted. Also the popular media - trash TV, kid's TV and soaps where ideas are pushed subliminally.

Without wishing to sound hysterical about this you are but a generation away from being robbed of your culture. Value it and defend it at every turn or they'll be teaching your kids African drumming over classical music before you know it.

No wonder radical Islam and Eastern European gangsters are making such headway here.

Political Correctness starts as a joke "Oh it's that barmy lot again !"

Next thing you know they're in power.

Recently we had a bus driver throw off a couple because he was holding her on a leash "I'm his pet." she claimed - she was serious. Journalists found out they will be raising a family on taxpayer funded benefits as is their entitlement whilst having an 'alternative lifestyle.'

The bus driver is now looking at losing his job.

Employers are terrified of race and gender issues to the point that the majority are discriminated against and quite openly. Devon and Cornwall Fire Service ran recruitment days excluding white males.

But worse ...

We must fund the housing and healthcare of anyone who lands on these shores and claims asylum. Immigrants cannot be discriminated against because they have no skills. Britain has turned into a shit hole in the space of 20 years.
Great post PC.

The only thing is, your description of the Treaty is how it was SUPPOSED to be.

We all know that it turned out quite differently - the Maori had heaps of land stolen, etc, injustices, etc etc. All standard in NZ history books.

Surely a libertarian solution includes an apology and just compensation by the Crown to Maori tribes involved?

Or are you arguing that the gift of Western culture makes up for all the injustices carried out by the 19th century government?
very well written and direct...thanks to barnsley bill for the redirect...seems we go through so much turmoid to become great we often forget the principles that made us desireable to everyone else...i'm from the US...not a desireable place to be anymore...we lost the freedom part of our country and are now so PC we walk over the people who were born here or who are LEGAL citizens...pity really...
Luke H,

My geography lessons at school were all about the 'injustices' that the British inflicted on the colonies.

The idea of this indoctrination was to engender a feeling of guilt trhoughout my generation which was largely successful. The resistance against political correctness was thus neutralised because we 'deserved it'.

Arrogant though it may seem, YES the gift of western culture does make up for the injustices of the 19th century government. Let them give up modern medicine and the benefits of transport if they are to have an appology or compensation - I wager that they won't take the offer - otherwise you are opening up a deep well of resentment and handing power to minorities (but more so power to malicious white lawyers and activists) PC and minority interest will be used as a vanguard to batter every last vestage of your culture. Whatever ground you give will never be enough and a 'libertarian solution which involves just compensation by the Crown ...' is exactly what you must NOT do right now.

By all means seek independance from the spent force that is the British Commonwealth and one which does not deign to honour the likes of Edmund Hillary.

Don't give an inch. If you want to know what effect relenting will have on your culture then visit me in the UK and I'll gladly show you. Remember to bring your stab proof vest with you though.
Mother Ecclesiastica here...

Thanks for that.You're quite right when you say that Maori didn't 'own' New Zealand.

Same problem here in Australia.Somehow, us whitefellas are suppose to believe that a bunch of constantly warring tribes 'owned' the whole of this island, and if we'd simply left them alone to get on with the Noble Savage thing, they'd have been realy happy little Vegemites.

The fact that the British chased off the French (whose only interest in the Aborigines was to capture and enslave them and sell them off to god knows where)doesn't get a mention.

The fact that the 'white' Australians chased off an attempted Chinese invasion in the late 1800's and thus saved the lives of the Primitives also gets no 'thank you'.

And of course, there's the Japs in the 1940's who definitely wanted Australia - sans dark-skinned people...

But if good manners has now become a De Facto Politic: I'd be real willing to accept a pleasant thank you.

I'm not asking for one mind...
Over in Australia the recently elected PM, Rudd, is about to "apologise" to the abos for all sorts of bad things that supposedly were done to them. His predecessor, John Howard, consistently refused to apologise for occurances which he and his colleagues had nothing to do with. John Howard used to say that an apology implies wrong doing on the part of those who make it. Howard was also concerned that it would mean accepting an obligation to compensate. Interestingly enough, no sooner had Rudd announced he would apologise (for what? being born?), the abos were already calling for billions of dollars of cash and, more significantly, legislative changes...

Australia will follow New Zealand into the black hole of national socialism soon enough it would seem.

LGM
"Or are you arguing that the gift of Western culture makes up for all the injustices carried out by the 19th century government?"

YES!
And...some of my wife's ancestors were murdered by Maoris--can she expect an apology for that sometime soon?Of course not and she wouldn't expect one because the whole idea is absurd.
Hear, hear, PC.

I speak as one whose family came here in 1843, first native NZ'er in the family born 1844
Thoroughly splendid work Peter.

KG, I totally agree. Wouldn't it be wonderful to get this out to every household.
Tim Wikiriwhi has an excellent article here about property ownership.

Tim, may I suggest you write more excellent articles like the one above stated above, instead of preaching about God. It may pull in more followers to the Libz ideology.
A wonderful post. Thanks.

I dream of a day when Maori see the Treaty in this way (i.e. in the way it was written and signed) and so support parties that promote protection of property rights instead of the opposite.
LGM, your comments might appeal to a wider audience if you refrained from using the term “abo” which is now widely regarded as an ethnic slur. Australian Aborigine isn’t quite as pithy I know. It’s a shame that there appears to be no better term for Aborigine like how the people once known as Eskimos are now called Inuit. Does anyone know of one?Have I been too influenced by politically correctness?
Anglo, I've lived and worked among Aborigines for years (admittedly, not among the city-based ones) and I've never known them to object to either the term "Abo" or "blackfella".I suspect the outrage about the term is confined to bleeding-heart whites and black activists, pretty much.
I can only echo the positive comments made by others about your post, PC. This is the best article I have ever read on the Treaty..... many thanks for writing it. It should have been published in all the daily newspapers and I am sure there are very few journalists or columnists who could have made as good a job of it as you have - let alone surpassed it.

It seems that in many parts of the world British colonialism was largely a matter of "1.beat the darkies into submission with huge amounts of judiciously applied firepower; 2.teach them who's boss; 3.force them to do it our way; 4.develop a viable colony on the ruins based on trade with Mother England". The New Zealand experience, though, was refreshingly experimental in that steps 1 to 3 were largely dispensed with and the Brits jumped almost straight to stage 4 and the country went almost immediately into growth and prosperitity (relatively speaking).

As it turns out, though, the resentment and angst invented and fanned into full flame by the natives seems to be just as intense as if the Brits had carried out steps 1 to 3 with a vengeance. In fact, listening to these miserable specimens carrying on and on and on and on about the 'evils' of this country's foundation make me wonder if the whole "New Zealand" thing should more accurately be seen as a failed experiment. A nice try, but it hasn't really worked out, has it?
Dave Mann is quite wrong in his summing up of British Colonialism.

The British did not act that way, generally speaking, but other Colonial powers (most notably Belgium) did.

The British were interested in making money, exporting our language, legal system, values, culture etc.

The British did not enter a Country and start walloping people...that is a Communist myth (which has to be repeated 10 million times to make it true)

The British entered a Country, claimed it by doing little more than saying "Henceforth this is a British Colony" and commenced commercial or farming or mining activities, and forging good relations with tribal Chiefs and others.

The numbers of British people in the average Colony were quite small...for example, there were perhaps 10,000 in India at any given moment, mostly Civil Servants and Businessmen and their families.

Lord Clive, for example, his military victories in India were against the French, or against locals who were 'put up to it' by the French.

The myth that India was 'invaded' and 'conquered' has emerged due to Indian embarrassment, as Lord Clive had 1100 troops against 50,000 and won...so naturally the Indians want to make out they were overwelmed by an enormous army of rapacious British troops, rather than a handful of chaps who were ill fed, ill clothed and suffering from the heat.
Yes Elijah, you are correct. I was generalising really, but trying to make the point that very often in other colonies, although the first moves were largely trading and diplomatic, there was usually either a large war or a series of bitter smaller wars which the British tended to win, following which, a period of peace ("pax britannica") and relative growth was established.

In India, of course, the British encountered a civilisation that was vibrant, flourishing and cultured and had been so for three thousand years before they arived and you are right, they were neither invaded nor conquered - the Brits sub-contracted to build their civil service and railways etc and when they had finished, they were politely shown the door!

I think, compared to other European empires (the Dutch in the east Indies... my God! The Belgians in Africa), the British were much more restrained militarily and their colonies were built on trade and diplomacy rather than being simply stripped of their resources and slaughtered as a matter of principle. The African British colonies, for example, were dynamic viable economies that were self-supporting while sending their produce 'back home' to Mother England. Compare these places then to what is happening now...!

However, I don't think there are any other examples of the British signing a treaty with native people like they did with the Maoris here; that is, a treaty INSTEAD of a devastating bloody war, rather than an IMPOSED peace treaty following a military annahilation. I may be wrong, but I think New Zealand is historically unique in this respect. And, funnily enough, there seems to be more smouldering resentment about 'colonialism' here in some circles that there is in other places I have visited; Australia, India and Singapore come to mind in this respect.
The communists weren’t lying entirely about British atrocities during the colonial era. The Summer Palace in Beijing was deliberately burnt by British and French forces during the Opium War (1860) to punish the Chinese. I believe it took three days of systematic destruction to finish the job. The British along with their mates returned in 1900 and burnt it all down again. Even today you can view the ruins of the European Palace which the Chinese decided not to rebuild in order to show people the reality of Western aggression.It would probably be fair to say that the British weren’t as bad as others but I think the truth is somewhere in the middle of the above views.
Don't Vote Labour
Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio (1889), Oak Park, Illinois
When I lived in Chicago and took the Wright walk around his houses in Oak Park, saving this beauty for the finale. There are so many wonderful features but these are the ones that first spring to mind:

The foyer has a lead light roof, a deco design of mottled greens that came as a vision to Wright as he lay on a forrest floor looking up into the dappled light in the trees.

The corridor into his studio (seen on the left side of the house) is one person wide, a dark little conduit that opens spectacularly as you enter the two-storied octagonal atrium. He was a visual trickster, manipulating his house guests all the way.

You have to duck when you enter the special room for the children built upstairs, where the scale of everything is downsized for the little ones. He wanted to make it magical, achieved with art glass windows filtering an ethereal light.

In the dining room his purpose-built, six-foot high tall-back chairs were designed to create an intimate space for the guests at the table. I sat at the head and indeed it was a room within the room. Typical of Wright's distaste for anything ugly, he bricked up the windows because he couldn't bear to look at the monstrosity that was erected next door.

The tour is something you need to put on your "Must do before I die" list. :-)
P.S. Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Pete. :-)
$150,000 per car!
PC, seriously, did you (and Liberty Scott) bother to activate even a few brain-cells before writing, or were those posts just a natural reflex driven by blind ideology?
Did you bother to actually think up a counterargument, or did you think merely insulting someone would better display your intellect?

Try again.
PC

those numbers would be fine if the tollway had a life of one day.

But it doesn't.

If it has a life of a year the cost would be $410 per car (300m/2000/365) and I presume reducing proportionally for every year that it is used thereafter.

Insider
Does anyone know if its 2000 new commuters on buses? or 2000 who are currently using the service anyway (regardless of the busway). Because if the latter is teh case then the figures could be MUCH worse for the busway.

BTW Peter its $105,000 per car off the road (over the lifecycle of the road) not $150,000.

Insider. That would be the cost of the car for a day (if the lifecycle was for a year).
MikeE No one seems able to tell anyone whether it's 2000 new commuters on buses, or 2000 who are currently using the service anyway, or whether that's per day, per week, or what.

So for our rough calculation, that's $210 million + the cost of bus stations and buses = [the figure given by Helen] = $300 million /2000 = $150,000 per car.

based on the average salary, that could pay 2000 people to stay home for five years.
HTBD said .... nonsense.

BTW, did someone mention "blind ideology"?
I drove alongside it today and was stunned by the sheer Number of bues NOT driving along it.....there was just empty road.What a fucking waste of space and money....I will see if volume increases while I sit in the STILL jammed main motorway over the next few weeks...
Yeah - fucking typical - lets turn it into a toll road so that only rich pricks can afford to use it!

(just in case you were wondering, I was being sarcastic - a toll road would be a good idea)
Wow, nice maffs bro. I think you've got some good arguments but playing with the numbers like that is a little bit embarrassing.
Hail to the busdriver, did you bother to challenge your own presumption that buses should have a subsidised dedicated corridor paid for by all road users, or was your response just a natural reflex driven by blind ideology?

I'd like a big new roadway to be used, and if it is just for bus users, let the bus users pay through the bus companies for the full costs of the busway.

PC may be wrong, as the buses I suspect wont be empty - but the road will be.

The busway is a far better project that wasting money electrifying Auckland rail, I just think it would be better as a tollway.
They died of it
I knew a guy that was playing basketball in his neighborhood and some gang took offense because he was on their turf, so they shot him. He got took to the hospital, pretty near-by. But he had no health insurance (too skint), so they "stabilized" him (i.e. bandaged him up), and turned him away. He died right in front of the hospital of that gun wound.

Gee, isn't capitalism swell!
Nah it's coming up to the full moon...come on every one know its the full moons fault
Daniel, you offer the story about your friend of a friend unattributed, unsourced and unsupported -- that may work in your local, but I like to think we have higher standards here.

You appear to offer it as some sort of a refutation of "capitalism" in medicine. You offer it in opposition to direct evidence that socialist medicine kills, and the more socialist the more fatal.

You're wrong on at least two counts.

1) Contract cancer in Eastern Europe or the UK, where more socialist health systems are the rule, and your chances of survival are less than fifty/fifty. Contract cancer in the US however -- the most evil, greedy, selfish nation on the planet -- and your chances vault up to nearly two-thirds. The reason that Brits are more likely to die than Yanks? "Cancer experts blamed late diagnosis and long waiting lists [in Britain]."

See 'UK Survival Rate Lowest in Europe' - Telegraph. The new study mentioned in the Telegraph "demonstrates what opponents of socialized medicine have been saying for years," says Don Watkins: "socialized medicine kills." Consider that in the US alone, 1.4 million people will be diagnosed this year, and you realise the numbers involved. As Watkins makes plain, people are dying for the sake of failed ideology.

2) But wait! There's more.

Let's assume that despite your story being unattributed, un-sourced and unsupported that your friend of a friend's condition wasn't such that the stabilisation appeared to have worked. Let's assume that he was simply ejected, as you seem to suggest, rather than being observed for some time to ensure stability.

You seem to suggest on the basis of your story that the US system is heartless, and that it is heartless due to it being largely capitalist.

You couldn't be more wrong.

Yes, the US system is more capitalist than the health systems of Britain, Eastern Europe or here in NZ (for which several hundred thousand Americans can breathe a sigh of thanks. In fact, they can breathe.)

However, it would be wrong to say that the American health system is wholly capitalist.

For evidence on this score, you might care to read, Lin Zinser and Paul Hsieh's survey of "the history of government interference in health insurance and medicine in America, specifying the rights violations and economic problems caused thereby; they enumerate the failed attempts to solve those economic problems by means of further government interference; and show that the only viable solution to the debacle at hand is to gradually and systematically transition to a rights-respecting, fully free market in these industries."

3) But you might object, Daniel, that you don't care about any of that. You don't care about the evidence, you simply insist that your friend of a friend had a 'right' to whatever health care you insist he should have -- that he was 'entitled' to demand health care from whatever health provider he cared to name, without wanting to pay a cent for it.

Is there any reason you shouldn't be called goddamn immoral vicious bastard?

Just think what your supposed 'right' to health care does to health providers; just consider what your claimed 'entitlement' to being looked after does to those who need to service you so called entitlement.

For you to have a 'right' to health care means that those who are tasked to fulfil your care have no rights. You are asking for them to be made your slaves. You see that?

If you insist they care for you without payment, you're either insisting that they slave without payment, or you're insisting that other people be enslaved to pay for you to enslave your health care workers.

You goddam immoral vicious bastard.

You have no more 'right' to free health care than you do to free pizza. Neither come as gifts from heaven -- both pizza and health care must be paid for by someone.

As Yaron Brook points out, it is the 'entitlement mentality' (along with the cooperation of spineless politicians) that is destroying health care in America:

"In a system in which someone else is footing the bill, consumers, encouraged to regard health care as a 'right,' demand medical services without having to consider their real price. When, through the 1970s and 1980s [in America], this artificially inflated consumer demand sent expenditures soaring out of control, the government cracked down by enacting further coercive measures: price controls on medical services, cuts to medical benefits, and a crushing burden of regulations on every aspect of the health care system.

"As each new intervention further distorted the health care market, driving up costs and lowering quality, belligerent voices demanded still further interventions to preserve the "right" to health care. And Republican politicians—not daring to challenge the notion of such a "right"—have, like Romney, Schwarzenegger and Bush, outdone even the Democrats in expanding government health care.

"The solution to this ongoing crisis is to recognize that the very idea of a 'right' to health care is a perversion. There can be no such thing as a 'right' to products or services created by the effort of others, and this most definitely includes medical products and services. Rights, as [the U.S.] founding fathers conceived them, are not claims to economic goods, but to freedoms of action.

"You are free to see a doctor and pay him for his services—no one may forcibly prevent you from doing so. But you do not have a 'right' to force the doctor to treat you without charge or to force others to pay for your treatment. The rights of some cannot require the coercion and sacrifice of others."

Daniel seems unable to grasp a fairly simple logic...that had his friend engaged in Capitalist activities he would not have been 'skint' and would be alive today (presumably).

Private medicine, poverty, unaffordable home ownership, electricity blackouts...the problem is not too much Capitalism, but too littleyou offer the story about your friend of a friend unattributed, unsourced and unsupported -- that may work in your local, but I like to think we have higher standards here.

What, like your evidence of near empty buses on the new bus-lane in another post?

I also like this:"your chances vault up to nearly two-thirds". Clever - It looks good, but of course 50/50 is "nearly two thirds" (50% versus nearly 60%), so that evidence is utterly meaningless.

ps, how are you enjoying that "Lying with Statistics" book?
"your chances vault up to nearly two-thirds".Clever - It looks good, but of course 50/50 is "nearly two thirds" (50% versus nearly 60%), so that evidence is utterly meaningless.

Well my calculations suggest that "nearly two thirds" is actually "nearly 66%" which when compared to 50% is most certainly statistically relevant. It is a 16% difference which when calculated against the 1.2million who are diagnosed with cancer each year in the US means that more than 190,000 people in the US survive their cancer in the US who would die in Britain's socialist system.

So perhaps you should go back to worshiping your bus driver - because you are not dazzeling anyone with your brilliance here.
This is an interesting story of what kills people in the UK health system. (hint: centrally determined pay)
We have just returned from an extended stay in Auckland due to my better half's below par health. We have the super duper southern cross policy and after a year of waiting (on the public system)decided to go private to enable her relief from a chronic (but not life threatening) illness.Two weeks after first specialist meeting the surgery is complete and recovery is well underway.We saved the public health system close to 30k by going private. Do we gt any sort of relief on our lightening the load on the public purse? Do we fuck as like.At the very least all senior members of the public health system should be barred from having private medical insurance. I would include the health minister, PM, deputy PM and all the Health ministers staff. Let them rely on the public system. it may help to focus their minds on the waiting lists.
Daniel Owen said; "Gee, isn't capitalism swell!"

Agreed, Daniel, it is indeed swell--it allows some of us to buy private health cover and bypass the statist bastard bureaucrats who ration it.
Daniel, under a privatised health system there would be nothing to stop you and other like minded people from banding together and purchasing medical insurance for all the uninsured people out there. Or, you could notify all hospitals that anyone could present for treatment and you or your insurer would cover the cost.

The beauty of privatised health is that I can be as generous as I like to other people, e.g. I might want to purchase medical insurance for my extended family, my local iwi, or any other group of people small or large. But I wouldn't have to subsidise care for people who actively sabotage their own health, e.g. recidivist smokers, alcoholics, intravenous drug users, etc., who are over-represented in our hospitals.

Barnsley Bill - I like your idea of stopping the statist politicians and health bureaucrats from having private medical insurance. Of course, there would have to be safeguards in place to ensure that they didn't abuse their positions of power by demanding preferential treatment in the public hospital system.
We need some context to your story Daniel. Was your friend trespassing on some property that really was the "turf" of some "gang" (e.g. a lawn bowling club). Was he tanked up on methamphetamine and did he pull a knife on someone when asked to leave? Was he then shot by a security guard in an act of self-defence?

Let me guess - I bet this incident occurred in a place like LA, NYC, Boston or Washington DC where a person can't legally carry a concealed weapon.
Some of the responses to Daniel's post take a rather hysterical and dogmatic tone. Daniel raises a point not very well addressed on this site and it is one of the few areas I find NotPC's reasoning is lacking.

It really doesn't matter that this story is unsourced, the point is that in an entirely private healthcare system, this scenario would be the norm for people without health insurance who suffer an accident or whatever and need emergency care.

So, if some 19 year old from the ghetto isn't forward thinking enough to buy health insurance and gets stabbed and needs emergency surgery, what should happen to him? Should he die laying in the street outside the hospital? This seems to be what PC is advocating. I don't want to live in a society like that, and as a doctor I would not want to work in that kind of system.

Medical care of acutely unwell people is an interesting ethical area that I have thought a lot about. As a doctor if I am going for a walk and someone in front of me collapses and needs first aid, I feel some sense of duty in caring for them, over and above the "duty" of an untrained person walking by. It would be unethical for me to keep walking.

This is not altruism or selflessness - it is a unique characteristic of my profession, in dealing with people at their most vulnerable. I am not a doctor for altruistic reasons, and see this "duty" to others as a part of my profession, and it is in my own rational self-interest to maintain my professional integrity and live up to my own standards.

The poorest, least-educated people in any society are also the sickest, and this will always be the case. So what should happen the the child of an impoverished family who is diagnosed with leukemia? "Too bad, they should have been better at 'capitalist acitivities'"?

The statistics that NotPC uses re: cancer rates in different countries are so obviously meaningless, and I wonder if his calling Daniel a 'vicious goddamn bastard' for his post betrays a hint of uneasiness with his own argument.

I don't think of health-care as a right in general, and see as moral and correct the idea of providing health-care on a contractual basis where the real cost and value of health-care is acknowledged. I don't like the idea of subsidising health care for those who actively sabotage their own health. But I don't think requiring health-care is morally as straightforward as wanting pizza.

I am not sure what the answer is to "what is the best health care system for NZ", but it is hard for me to imagine a completely private system that functions in reality. I think a mostly private system would be ideal, where private insurance plays a greater role, with a much smaller and less unwieldly public system.
'FARC off' says worldwide protest (updated)
Thanks PC for highlighting the appalling activities of one of the oldest Marxist guerrilla groups in the world.

As an aside, I recently watched an interview with Venezuela’s "Dear Leader", an interview which was conducted in 1998. In it, Chavez responded to fears people had about his intentions. He categorically stated that he would not nationalise any business in Venezuela nor would he interfere with the operations of media organisations. 10 years on and his true intentions are now unfortunately all too clear.

Julian Darby
A swift boat for McCain (updated)
link bad.
Is it the allegation that he had it sweet in Nth Vietnam?

JC
Ha ha..oh gosh Peter, this is highly amusing.

Somehow I think Mr Wheeler and others having been watching too many of the Rambo films.

(It is not McCain who is 'psychologically unstable' by the sounds of it)
Link fixed. Thanks Berend."Somehow I think Mr Wheeler and others having been watching too many of the Rambo films."

Maybe so. But his POW heroism is a big part of McCain's package -- if it's not as described, that says a lot about McCain's honesty.You can see video of Coulter's admission here.

Um, the Paris Hilton of the right shock-jocking on 'Innanity and the Other Guy'? It would be more link-worthy if she actually said anything half-way intelligent.

Would I be wrong in saying she's got a book to shill, and since she was dis-invited from the C-PAC conference after last year's 'faggot' debacle, this is the best platform she has to reach the legion of Ann-droids.

Makes you yearn for the days when the public face of American conservatism was William F. Buckley -- who at least could put together a coherent argument, and called Gore Vidal a fag with some patrician brio.

Between the Coulter-droids and the Paul-ettes, I don't think a Clinton Administration is going to be "the same ruinous liberal policies with none of the responsibility." I'd rather see a third Billary Administration than Mitt ('flip, flop, fib' Romney or the Huckster, for whom the Bible trumps the Constitution every time. If that's Coulter's idea of the real face of the GOP and conservatism, she deserves eight years of Billary and a Democrat Congress.
"A pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be Prime Minister."
"No bone, no spine, no heart, no guts and no vision -- just charm, smarm and the empty vessel of managerialism."Beautiful! And so true.
All the more reason for us to get stuck into him and prevent this 'confidence trick' he is trying to play on the NZ people from happening.
I remember another PM in waiting of whom it was said he was "Sleepwalking to victory".

It's just the dynamics of elections in NZ. Brash had to recover the party from it's awful slump in 2002 and he was bold because he had no other reasonable choice.

Key, like Bolger doesn't need to do that as his opposition is folding and like Bolger, doen't know just what awaits him, so he's cautious to simply let a tired and corrupt Govt fall under it's own weight.

I've no doubt that there's policy to come but not ten months prior to the election because that simply allows Labour to divert attention from it's own failings.

JC
The terrible thing about John Key (and the whole National party) is that, as you point out, they have no actual policies, philosophy or firm vision for where thy feel New Zealand's direction should be.

Much as I despise the Labour party and their feminazi eco-fuck anti-family anti-capitalist tribalist hangers on, at least one thing you can say about them is that they STAND for something. They stand firmly for the destruction of our country as a cohesive entity and they are working clearly and openly towards this goal....at least the public can understand that.

But the National party? What does the national Party stand for? Actually, it seems to stand for exactly the same thing as the Labour party if you examine their actions closely as some commentators do... but the tragedy is that the public of this poor benighted little backwater haven't got a clue what's going on.

When John Key becomes Prime Minister of this country (and he will become PM), it will be the final blow that finishes us off. The Nats will then open up a whole new can of the same old worms in their mad scramble to grab power for power's sake, except that they will be even less principled than labour and they will sway and twist with whatever pressure group threatens them most or offers them the biggest bribes. Look for the maoris and the greens in the next government; their seats at the cabinet table are being reserved already.

The public is absolutely sick of putting up with the failures of this sick socialist experiment - but instead of actually achieving a meaningful change of direction, it looks as if it will actually be worse after November as the scramble to divvy up what's left of this once proud country gathers pace.

The choice between an ugly domineering asshole and a grinning smarmy conman is not an enviable one and the country really should have a real alternative to chose from. Where is our alternative?
Yoo Hoo, dave! over here! *waves*

My biggest problem with Libertarianism is what I expect the electorate at large's problem to be; that of blanket extremism and principles taken to ridiculous lengths.

I realise that I am generalising here, but its a far cry from putting forward cogent reasons why we should reduce the meddling interference of government in people's lives to making the repetitive cry that ALL tax is theft and the state should have NO PLACE at all in people's lives.

Its a matter of degree. As far as I can judge "Libertarianism Lite" would be somewhere slightly to the right of ACT, which would be exactly what this country needs. Full strength Libertarianism would be almost as big a disaster in my view as National or Labour, but for different reasons obviously.

I think the electorate would run a mile from LibzFullStrength, which is why they are the Shiraz of NZ politics.... heady and full blooded, but with an underlying irritating peppery quality which you can't quite stomach in huge quantities and which has a slightly suspicious name to boot.

Quite a long time ago, I emailed Rodney with the suggestion that he launch a campaign to hollow out National's vote (after Brash was booted out) by stealing some of their better MPs and at the same time effect a merger with the Libertarianz in order to put in place some real policies and form a 'coalition of the right'. This suggestion was met with a polite stereotyped reply from some ACT functionary who might just as well have said "thank you but Mr Hyde is currently concentrating on perfecting his Walz technique. If and when he decides the time is right to Tango, no doubt he will get back to you... but don't hold your breath."

OK, so I am maybe a little naive politically. But here, for what its worth, is my suggestion for the future of the Libz in this country:

1) Tone down some of the extremist rhetoric and allow the possibility that government has a place in a civil society

2) Clearly enunciate to the electorate that the time has come to not only drastically cut down government meddling and bureaucracy but also to set a new direction for the country. Good government works FOR the people, not the other way around.

3) Change the name to "XXXXXXXXX". This could be shortened colloquially to a familiar name which has the same ring to it as your current name and it would serve admirably as a vehicle.

4) As ACT won't act (so to speak), do the acting for them. Offer them the opportunity to be with you or against you and if they don't chose the former, attack them as hard as you can go by putting a good candidate against Rodney in Epsom and throwing all your resources into him (or her if you insist on PC language). ACT is finished at the next election anyway unless they revitalise and you people can be the instrument of their revitalisation if you play it properly. Either way you lose nothing and you stand to gain from the publicity alone in such a high profile seat.

5) Start a viral email awareness campaign to put forward a radical new direction for New Zealand. If a bloody underwear company can do it, you can do it.

I have not told you the party name I have in mind because a) I am not 100% sure it is available, b) I am not 100% sure you are worthy (hehehe. joke) and c)If you take this suggestion at all seriously, I'm sure you would like to keep it under wraps so that the fucking Greens or some other parasites don't grab it to prevent it being used.

If you want to discuss the name, I'm sure PC could find me.

Cheers

Dave Mann
Hi Dave .. you make some good points (& I agree entirely regarding Guy Smiley), but I would take issue with one or two.

AFAIC I have no desire to be any part of some 'coalition of the right'. I have no faith in either the "left" or the "right", because either way it's still the state. It's not a a cliche; like it or not, it's a fact.

Govt has bugger all place in my society, bar the libertarian concept of police, defence & justice. That's it. Other than those essentials, I want the nasty little grey bastards out of my life. Fuck them all.

However! I recognise that it cannot and will not happen all at once. It's a process brought about by a societal understanding of liberty - and as such, I am happy to support a gradual withdrawal.

But principles *cannot* be compromised. ACT has done that to its detriment.

I support a gradual dismantling of the state on the proviso that the process does not stop mid-way, leaving us with a half-cocked, quasi-govt situation a la the SOE's.

It is a matter of honour to be straight with the public; they deserve no less. (And God knows that would be a first, politically!)

The electorate would repond in a massive wave right now to the idea that (for example) government is far to big and takes upon itself far too much meddling and interference and above all has its priorities fucked. But they would shy like frightened horses from the idea that THE ONLY things that government should be involved in are Police, Defence and Justice. Its just too big a leap for most people to take and, frankly I don't agree with it.

You are advocating 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater'. That is an excellent phrase to describe it; its very old fashioned, but it serves admirably nevertheless.

You won't get anywhere at all electorally unless you modify your stance and attempt to relate to the electorate from a realistic standpoint.... which is a huge pity, because in so many areas you speak so much sense.
So concentrate upon what we have in common, Dave. Forget about the rest for now. Big picture and all that.

Having said that, where do you see the state fitting in? Or put another way, where would you draw the line?
Yes Dave....please explain where your line is where the state ceases protecting rights and begins violating them and why its justified...

Im not being nasty...just pointing out that when the State exceeds its legit role of rights protector and begins picking winners by setting some people against others that that is where we get the shit that you and I are opposed to happening...
I would draw the line right through (ie slash and burn) the ACC, The Labour Department (especially OSH), the Ministry of Human Development (and their spawn, the department of Social Welfare), the Conservation Department, the Waitangi Tribunal and Maori Affairs, Pacific Island Affairs and the 'Human Rights Commission' for a start... and then I would disestablish some of the more useless and meddling ministerial posts such as the Minister for Disarmament (Geez what a stupid idea that is), the Minister for Culture and heritage (another waste of time and money) and obviously the Racing Minister.

Once I had firmly drawn these elementary lines, I would then be free to start considering how I could really make an impact and save the poor long-suffering citizen from the grief and meddling that this overblown self-important governmental system has foisted upon the taxpayer.

Health, Education, care of the (actually) infirm and aged, Law and Order, Defence, Commercial Law and Order (however you want to put that) and basic infrastructure such as water, roads, sewerage etc would benefit enormously from my attention too, in that I would take it as a major objective to see to it that these areas SERVE THE PEOPLE - not the other way around.

My goal would be to halve the tax take while at the same time doubling the quality and effectiveness of vital services provided by government and I would institute a rigorous regime of accountability and responsibility.
Ummmmm....Dave, you engaged in a diatribe earlier about the Libertarian Party, but have just listed all our policies!

I had originally thought you and the Libertarian Party agreed on 95%of things..(differing in presentation only)..but now realise it is 100%

Welcome aboard!
Without tax, how would we pay for the police, army, and justice system? I've seen this question asked before, but never properly awnsered.
So you're still happy to have the nasty grey ones controlling health, education & utilities, eh.

Rather you than me, Dave. Why the hell would you want more of what doesn't work? "But it'd be different this time!", bollocks. If they're *not* generating their own income, they don't give a hoot. No matter what you did it would only ever be window-dressing. I work in the health industry, by the way. It's a mess.

And, of course, it means the grey ones decide who gets the op and who doesn't. Disgraceful.

Hanso: a good question, and one that's addressed in the FAQ's at lp.org.nz

I'm sure PC could advise of the pertinent 'Cue Card' for more info ...